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From mythology we learn that Hermaphroditus was the son of Hermes, or Mercury, and Venus Aphrodite, and had the powers both of a father and mother. In speaking of the foregoing Ausonius writes, "Cujus erat facies in qua paterque materque cognosci possint, nomen traxit ab illis."
From the Hermaphroditus of Beccadeli to the works of Berni and Pietro Aretino, a foul stream of novelle, epigrams, and comedies, from which the serious Dante would have turned his eyes in disgust, overflowed the land. Even in the less sensual novelle, the first of which was Piccolomini's Euryalus, and the less obscene comedies, adultery and derision of marriage are the leading motives.
Such was his extravagant commendation, and, consequently, his hearty approbation of a most unnatural production, "Hermaphroditus," which ultimately received the censure of the author himself, who was ashamed that he had written it, as shown in the following epigram preserved by Cardinal Quirini in his "Diatriba in Epistolas Francisci Barbari":
"Hermaphroditus an ad testamentum adhiberi possit qualitas sesus incalescentis ostendit." There is a peculiar case on record in which the question of legal male inheritance was not settled until the individual had lived as a female for fifty-one years.
Though in Ovid's Metamorphosis, Salmacis's being in Love with Hermaphroditus, and not succeeding in her amorous Wishes, her praying to the Gods to join their Bodies in one, has no Weight in it; yet, that the Notions of Hermaphrodites are not entirely fictitious, I need only mention the Servant of Montuus, who took his Hermaphrodite to be a Male when he lay with his Maids, and for a Female when she lay with her Husband to propagate their Species, the two Hermaphrodites of Licetus, and the Story of Ausonius, which he relates of an Hermaphrodite of Bonavento in Italy; and Histories are full of Confirmations, that many Persons in the World have had the privy Parts of both Sexes.
She lay at full length in the transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and gamboled with the enchanting grace that the nymph Salmacis might have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection were developed. I lessened the lamplight considerably.
All to whom he once gave his word, might testify to his inviolate performance of it. The same biographer adds that 'he was singularly religious, and most observant of the Divine commands. No morning passed without his hearing mass upon his knees. The Panormita; author, by the way, of the shameless 'Hermaphroditus. This fact is significant.
She lay at full length in the transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and gambolled with the enchanting grace that the Nymph Salmacis might have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection were developed. I lessened the lamp-light considerably.
And there's nothing to prevent its being taken even in this d d England, I think. The title's the worst part. You'll have to alter that." "Why? Swinburne has a poem, 'Hermaphroditus." "Yes in a volume; and there it's Latinised; and then Swinburne has made his name, which of course is everything.
She lay at full length in the transparent medium, in which she supported herself with ease, and gambolled with the enchanting grace that the nymph Salmacis might have exhibited when she sought to conquer the modest Hermaphroditus. I tried an experiment to satisfy myself if her powers of reflection were developed. I lessened the lamplight considerably.
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